Despite my blog quietism, I have been going to a few concerts. As much for my own future reference as anything else, these are those which I have not mentioned here so far.
SSO – 15 March
Joyce Yang played Tchaik 1; of the two obscurities, Dvořák’s Othello overture made a stronger impression than Tchaikovsky’s Fatum; Respighi’s Roman Festivals was the big finish. It’s too distant in the past for me to give any more informative or detailed comment.
SSO – 18 March
Joyce Yang in recital. I’m afraid despite her advocacy, I still cannot really warm to Bartok. It’s not just the idiom, I think it must be his personality. He is the composer of that kinky (and by contemporary standards also rather racist in the inscrutable oriental sense) Miraculous Mandarin, though I suppose he can’t be held entirely responsible for the ballet’s scenario.
SSO 5 April
Reinhard Goebel led the SSO through a rare excursion into earlier music. We got two out of three of the Water Music suites in what was claimed to be a more authentic sequence, though the lack of the first suite detracted a bit from that. The orchestra obviously warmed to Goebel but for me the venue is a bit big for some of this stuff. The revelation was the final Chaconne by Berton which is a bit of a calling card of Goebel’s.
Australia Ensemble 18 April
My friend P was following her son at a youth orchestra concert in Penrith, so I took my younger sister, visiting from rural WA. My nephew (aged 12) also came. He was a bit disappointed there wasn’t a trombone, since that is the instrument he is learning. Faced with a Dvořák string quintet in the second half we let him play with his DS in the foyer. The front-of-house staff offered him a free sandwich (more accurately, they are dinner-roll-sized little filled rolls) when they were clearing up. I was shocked to learn he declined the offer.
SSO 2 May
This was a “Meet the Music” concert but it was also a program which notably drew out (if I may say so myself) the cognoscenti. The whole Dulwich Hill gang and their associates were there in force as well as other notables. The attraction was Thomas Ades conducting his own work Polaris (without the visuals commissioned from his better half to go with it on its first performance), matched rather well with the Lutoslawski Cello Concerto (Peter Wispelwey), Sibelius 6 and, less obviously, Beethoven’s Namensfeier Overture. The Lutoslawski and the Ades fared the best, though the effect of the Ades rather depended on not sitting too closely (as a friend of mine did) to one of the antiphonal gallery brass choirs.
SSO – 9 May Beethoven
Beethoven can still pack the house. This was also the first appearance (at least witnessed by me) since his appointment of Andrew Haveron, the new [co-] concertmaster. It augured well. (Actually it seems from that link that Haveron is only here just now for a teaser and won’t be back for good until the beginning of next year. It’s a bit like those government promises that phase in over a far-into-the-future period.) Exceptionally, there were four men at the front of the first violins.
The concert opened with Weingartner’s arrangement of the Beethoven Grosse Fugue for string orchestra. This was testing for all and ultimately worth it, though I have to say there is something about a string orchestra which never really excites me. I know I’m showing my ignorance here but what exactly there was to arrange is a bit of a mystery beyond when to double the celli with the double bass and whether solo or tutti.
On the train home a friend offered the view that the Beethoven “Triple Concerto” is a “dud work.” I would say it is a bit at the “Wellington’s Victory/ Folk Song Arrangements” end of Beethoven’s oeuvre, but the thing about Beethoven is that in general (as you can see from the piano sonatas) he is almost incapable of writing a dud work. Is this the exception?
I think it is, at least when management yields to the the temptation (because 3 soloists are required) to field a local team. Mediocre or mediocre-ish works are just the pieces which require top-notch soloists. How top-notch they are or not is relative to the occasion: it is possible that Kirsty Hilton, Catherine Hewgill and Clemens Leske would make a good impression with a lesser orchestra, but we are used to better with the SSO. In the first movement, thunderous interjections from the piano kept making me (inwardly) ask “What’s up with grumpy?” Probably drama was intended but discomposure was the result. When I did a bit of a you-tube browse afterwards I could find performances which had more dramatic tension (the absence of this is partly, I think, a result of Ashkenazy’s rather genial approach) in the first movement and quite a lot more what I would think of as aristocratic “Archduke”-ish polish. They restored my faith in the work but showed up what this performance was lacking.
Fortunately, the Pastoral Symphony in the second half made up for this. Being Ashkenazy, it was a mellifluous and pretty straight down the middle approach (nothing unusually fast) but none the worse for that. I remain a sucker for muted strings and the second movement therefore remains my favourite.
It seems my subscription commitments to the SSO and the AE have effectively crowded out any more ad hoc concert-going. I should try to do something about that because they are not the only shows in town.
To prove that, I also went, with my sister and nephew to see the touring production of “One Man Two Guvnors.” It was expertly done though my having seen the original production as part of the National Theatre Live franchise somewhat took the wind out of its sails. They enjoyed it without this impediment.
News is recently out (here, currently in the news section, and here, pdf) that the SSO has appointed Andrew Haveron as co-concertmaster. He was here last May, and will start this May.
Haveron became joint concert-master of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London in 2012. Obviously, he was out here trying out or testing the water pretty soon after that.
The news hasn’t exactly hit the broadsheets here but its announcement by Norman Lebrecht has led to an illuminating (or not) comment thread of speculation, ranging from “Why did he?” (which given the early move from his previous position, seems a fair enough question to me, even if it is unlikely to be answered) to “How could he?”
On the SSO announcement one is invited to watch footage of Andrew performing with the Arensky Chamber Orchestra (rather than, say, the Philharmonia).
It might have been more fun if they had linked to here, albeit that it lacks any vision of Mr Haveron himself.
So when can we expect the vacant second principal cello position to be filled?
is almost upon us. So I thought I’d mention a few things which I’ve been to which are so far unnoticed here.
I went to the Pinchgut Opera’s production of Rameau’s Castor and Pollux.
I’m sorry to say that I found the acting of visiting American Jeffrey Thompson as Castor almost insufferable, even if it be accepted that some of it was his own musical necessity. At one point, for no perceivable reason, he sat on the edge of the stage just behind Erin Helyard (the harpsichordist) and ran his hands over EH’s bald/shaven cranium. Something like this was done last year (or maybe the year before) as well but then at least it was funny and had a reason. I wouldn’t like it to become a running gag and for that matter I don’t think it is fair on EH, whether he minded it or not.
I sometimes wondered what the director, Kate Gaul, was thinking of, albeit that she had to operate within some constraints.
The realisation of the balletic element was problematic. There were two rather fetching topless male dancers, and I’m not complaining about that. The women in the chorus, wearing vaguely Grecian drapery gym-slippy outfits, had to do rather a lot of stuff which maked them look like one of those early twentieth century photos of Druidic or Theosophic-ish groups doing something in the open air early in the morning. Sometimes the urge came to just shut one’s eyes and listen to the music.
I found the second half, which seemed to prefigure Gluck and Haydn in its account of other worlds, more interesting than the first.
The orchestra was good. I went twice. This was something I had planned long before.
I wish I could say I enjoyed it more. Maybe the novelty to me of the French baroque has lessened, thanks in large part to Pinchgut’s own productions, which have also set a pretty high act for Pinchgut itself to follow.
I also went to two SSO concerts. The first of these featured Scott Davie playing the original version of Rhachmaninov’s fourth piano concerto, and Tchaikovsky’s Manfred. The first was obviously a labour of love on SD’s part. I enjoyed but was not really electrified by it. Sometimes the verdict of history is right, and of course there are at least three better-known concertante works for piano by this composer. Manfred excited me more when Caetani conducted it a few years ago. This time it seemed a bit scrappy.
The second was billed as “Totally Tchaikovsky” (to distinguish it from Pique Dame as also being by Pushkin?) and paired the second piano concerto (also in its original version) with the fourth symphony. I heard Garrick Ohlsson on the radio admit that the second concerto is an inferior work to the first, but all things considering that is not as big a put down as it might at first seem. I enjoyed it and again on the live broadcast which I also listened to the next afternoon. There were differences in approach between Ohlsson and Stephen Hough, who played this concerto here not so long ago. I like to think that these match differences in their personality.
I have yet to see a publicity shot of Garrick Ohlsson that looks less than ten years old. The standard one looks as though it was taken more like twenty years ago, if not more.
One feature of the original version of the concerto is a kind of trio between the concertmaster, principal cello and piano in the middle movement. I should concede (because sometimes I rail against her place in the orchestra’s publicity limelight that seems to only be rivalled by that enjoyed or hogged for the WASO by their grinning percussionist) that I enjoyed Catherine Hewgill’s solo in this very much.
The Tchaikovsky was on the mellow and warm side. That doesn’t mean that it didn’t have big moments, but it wasn’t as directly ominous as I have sometimes heard it, nor as angular. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the second theme of the first movement edged into quite so gently. It was a distinctive approach.
Longer ago I went to the last of the Australia Ensemble concerts for the year. The highlight of this for me (and I can’t say I was expecting this) was Ian Munro’s arrangement of Debussy’s Six epigraphes antiques.
At the end of the concert, the retiring Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic) announced next year’s program. When he anglicized the “ř” in “Dvořák” a kind of electric frisson mixed with comfort of knowing better rippled round the hall. As is customary, rather splendid chocolates and slightly less splendid but alcoholic-if-you-wished drinks were given out in the foyer afterwards.
I’ll be back for more.
On Sunday night I went to a concert by Orchestra Romantique at Paddington Town Hall. I first heard of this in November from Wanderer. Now that I look I see that it was announced on facebook on June 16. I think I had by then given up on checking to see if anything was happening with this group. You couldn’t say this concert was over-publicized. Handbills were distributed outside Castor & Pollux but to little evident effect. By the time the concert was held, it had been announced as the orchestra’s final concert in its present form. Something smaller may or may not emerge.
The first half of the program was the Brahms double concerto. This was the draw-card for me. Kristian Winther (who also directed) was the violinist and Timo-Veiko Valve the cellist. Without a dedicated conductor (Kirsty Hilton also waved her bow from the leader’s desk in one particularly hairy bit) it was all rather strict-tempo, but I still enjoyed it. The early-music push of the previous concerts did not seem to be a particular issue. Maybe with the size of the band we were meant to imagine ourselves at Meiningen.
The second half was in honour of Beethoven’s birthday and featured a kind of running address by ["Lord"] Geoffrey Robertson on liberty and the enlightenment. It also featured rather a lot of namedropping on GR’s part, though some may feel he is entitled to it. Overall it seemed a rather long bow to draw from the “Turkish March” from Beethoven’s music written in 1811 for von Kotzebue’s play, “The Ruin of Athens” to GR’s proposed appearance before the European Court of Human Rights to argue for the return of the “Elgin Marbles” to Greece.
When GR ascribed the push to end slavery as one originating in “High Anglicanism” he had gone too far. Last time I looked (then, and since) the Clapham Sect and Wilberforce were evangelicals, which is usually thought of as being quite the opposite. Call me a pedant, but that’s the sort of historical howler that can cast a bit of a shadow.
This sort of talking is not really a drawcard for me. It just seems a waste of an orchestra to have it sit by idle. I realise that is an error because the orchestra’s time is not to be measured simply by its time on stage on the night – there also has to be rehearsal time. So maybe the talking was a way of padding the program out. Others enjoyed it.
It’s sad to see the orchestra fold (or even restructure into something smaller) but not really surprising. It was good to hear them while they lasted.
More for my own later benefit than anybody else’s, in between (still) the endless claims of looking for a suitable residence I have been to:
SSO – 7 Sep – This had a quiet half and a loud half. First, Debussy, Prelude d’apres midi etc; Takemitsu, From me flows what you call time (for percussion soloists and orchestra, written for the centenary of the Carnegie Hall) and Copland 3. I like the quiet the most and had I been able to I would have loved to hear the Takemitsu again. So many gorgeous sounds, and the music also compelling. The Copland was enjoyable despite some really scrappy fiddling in the Hoe-down rewrite (forgive me but I find hard to think of the symphony other than a a bigger version of Appalachian Spring). Liked Robert Spano (conductor).
18 Sep – OA dress rehearsal of Madama Butterfly - my old friend and former student Db’s mother doesn’t subscribe to the opera but she is a friend and picks up dress rehearsals and the odd rush ticket. She couldn’t go to this so I got to go. Probably the 6th or 7th time I’ve seen this (I still have an old American Express card with Cheryl in the title role) but first time from upstairs. Japanese visiting soprano good as Cio-cio san and probably even better if closer for the acting bit; James Egglestone not yet really up to the mark as Pinkerton though at least he was credible when he took his shirt off; Michael Lewis having difficulties with some of the top notes of Sharpless and subsequently indisposed for the first night. Dress rehearsals far from ideal way to see opera (all those people with desks and lights in the stalls and extremely chatty types in the lighting box behind us in the circle) but hey it was free and it was good to catch up with Db.
21 Sep – SSO, Angela Hewitt, Mozart concerto 20 – not really brooding or romantic enough for me; preceded by Dutilleux Mystère de l’instant - tribute to Bartok (string orchestra, percussion and, instead of celeste, cymbalon) which was fascinating and the highlight (for me); followed by Beethoven 4. Hannu Lintu conducted. I never really got into the groove of the Beethoven, in part because I allowed myself to be distracted by a bunch of Chinese nationals behind me who couldn’t sit still and had jackets and possibly other items of clothing made of incredibly noisy fabric.
22 Sep – Australia Ensemble, with D and my old friend Ub on tickets usually used by my friend P. Sculthorpe and Beamish on wind and water combinations (clarinet and piano and flute, oboe and harp respectively), then Beethoven Clarinet Trio. It was a bit hard to relax in the Beamish because I was right in the line of sight of the harpist looking over her glasses at the music and concentrating rather fiercely. This made me wonder if, rather in the way that people grow to look like their pets, harpists are possibly rather highly strung: it must be difficult to relax when the sound is all attack and you are endlessly plucking in the way that you must on the concert harp. Schubert’s Death and the Maiden in the second half was pretty intense in a very satisfying way, especially in the second movement (based on the song). Ub came away from the concert a convert to sitting up close – she had been to the AE once before but was either too tired or too far away and found it all too much. I suspect on that occasion, given that I don’t remember running into her there, she may have slipped away at interval, and so missed the Schumann Quintet.
24 Sep – SSO without the orchestra – Angela Hewitt on her own doing the Goldberg variations drew a full house. In her program notes she discounted the old Forkel story about Keyserling having the music played to help him get to sleep. Musicologists discount it because the published work lacks a dedication. My own experience on this occasion backs them up for a different reason: I found it almost impossible to banish bits of it from my brain in favour of sleep afterwards (a common sign for me of a work making an impact is how it works me up). Towards dawn and after a quarter of a sleeping pill, the general G-majorishness became oddly merged with the Sarabande from the G Major French Suite. Then again, maybe things would be different once familiarity and domestic repetition bred content.
That’s a little joke between D and me. It stands for “Concert was good,” which is what I usually say just after I have come in the door from a concert. (D comes to the opera but mostly not to concerts.) It’s part of our private (now less so, I guess, though not by much) vocabulary of acronyms, along with, for example, GST (MSG), MSG (GST), WG (“what gear?” dating from when we had a manual car and D exhibited reluctance to change down when taking corners), KD (keep distance: another plea by me from the passenger seat) and WB (old internet talk for “welcome back” in the days of IRC).
Actually there’s also SFU (STFU)as a response to things like WG and KD, but that is hardly special to us.
Tonight with some of the Dulwich Hill gang to the SSO to hear the same program I heard on Friday night.
I enjoyed it much more. Why?
One hypothesis: it was a Saturday and not squeezed in at the end of a working day.
Another hypothesis: I didn’t go with Dx, my hypercritical professional musician friend returning to the SOH after a long absence and a musical life in Europe.
A third hypothesis: I sat in the rear of the stalls rather than the front of the circle.
A fourth hypothesis: the orchestra played differently.
A fifth hypothesis: I was hearing the program for a second time.
These hypotheses are not necessarily mutually exclusive. I put the biggest weight on 3 and 5.
As to 1 and 2, I’m reminded of the legal realist aphorism that a decision depends on what the judge had for breakfast. It’s one reason why I’m glad I’m not a critic.
As to 4, my fellow Dulwich Hill gangsters expressed the view that the orchestra’s playing of a specific program doesn’t vary very much. Given what I’ve said about 1 and 2, that’s a hard thing to be sure of though in an overall way it is probably largely true. It is only incidental, but the masking tape had been removed from the panels closest to the circle since last night, so some things at least had changed.
As to 3, the sound of the orchestra was definitely superior in the rear stalls. The woodwind perhaps didn’t carry so well as they do to the circle, but the string sound certainly was much warmer and could balance the brass. The brass didn’t stick out in the way it did when I was upstairs.
5 mostly affected my response to the Carl Vine concerto. I knew where he was going and I could respond to it more familiarly. It’s no coincidence that many famous works have received a lukewarm reception at their first performance. I wouldn’t go so far yet as to predict fame for this particular work. Returning to (3), the piano sound in the stalls was definitely better. In particular I enjoyed the last third or so of the first movement and the whole of the middle movement, though the pianistic writing still struck me as not being particularly interesting. My fellow gangsters enjoyed it, though when I pressed them they didn’t go so far as to declare they would make a special effort to hear it again. It is an effective work.
I still would have liked to have heard all of Images (ie, Iberia as well). I really enjoyed the Brahms.
The home hunt and preparatory purging of possessions continue.
Meanwhile, on Monday to hear Piers Lane in the SSO’s piano recital series at Angel Place.
The program was:
Debussy: Arabesques 1,2; Gardens in the Rain (Estampes); Reflections in the water (Images) L’Isle Joyeux
Bartok: Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs Op 20
Liszt – Venezia and Napoli from Years of Pilgrimage (supplement to Year II: Italy)
Interval
Chopin the 17 “authentic” Waltzes in order of composition
Piers Lane likes to chat. He came up to a microphone at the front of the stage between each bracket. In the first half the volume was set too loud and he was plagued by feed-back as he spoke. Is there a stage manager? Shouldn’t some technician immediately adjust this? It shouldn’t be up to the artist, who has a lot on his mind, to dash off stage between brackets and ask for this to be attended to. Angel Place is not a cheap hall to hire and the SSO, for that matter, is not an amateur concert manager. Whoever’s responsibility it is, this was an extremely unsatisfactory and quite unprofessional situation.
In addition, I suspect because of the level the volume was turned up to, there was a distinct and unacceptable ambient hiss emanating from the PA system. It deprived the room of a proper silence into which the music could resonate in the spirit of object falling into water which is supposed to set of the ripples inspiring Debussy’s Reflections.
The risk of this occurring is just precisely one of the reasons why I am not keen on concert talking. The thing I particularly cannot understand is why in this post-valve era, speaker systems cannot just be turned off – even at the price of a momentary pop or click. But no, they and their operators seem to be like diesel engines and their drivers, and cannot bear interruption.
Mercifully, in the second half the hiss abated (though not totally) and the feedback was cured. It was such a relief and made a world of difference. I’m guessing it was as simple a matter as turning the volume down but I don’t pretend to know if that was the case – that’s what I expect the people running the concert to know.
The program notes told us that the original first half offered by PL was a later Schubert sonata. This was ruled out by the SSO because it had been heard in the series too recently. If that was the true reason, I think this underestimates the preparedness of the audience to hear varied interpretations. For myself I would have preferred a single work to balance the small works (albeit all of a kind) which the Waltzes comprised as the second half.
I thought the best playing in the first half was in the Bartok, but it may just be because that is the piece I know and like least. I’ll return to the Debussy later.
Lane divided the Waltzes into brackets of 6, 6 and 5. This meant three chatty introductions. These were quite interesting even if (to labour the point) for me they interrupted the spell. However, Lane was not always a reliable informant. He drew a parallel between Opus 18 (often entitled Grand Waltz Brilliante) and Weber’s “Introduction to the Dance” which is fair enough, and added that it was in the same key as the Weber. The Chopin is in E flat major; last time I looked the Weber is in D flat major. They do share an introduction on the dominant – maybe that’s what he was thinking of.
Lane’s Chopin probably wasn’t playing which would have pleased Chopin purists – he is a bit short on aristocratic restraint, but for me it was at a level of polish way above pretty much all of the first half, and I don’t think it was the relief from the hiss which accounted for this. I enjoyed it. For an encore, he played a waltz by Dohnyani, which suited his natural exuberance and provided probably the most brilliant playing of the evening.
But back to the Debussy. Writing in the Herald about this recital, Peter McCallum had this to say:
“Lane’s finger work was fluid. He tended to avoid the exploration of very soft textures.”
Soft textures are a pretty big thing in Debussy. That’s really a polite way of saying his Debussy was too loud. At least, that’s what I thought. Mind you, such nuances seem to have been entirely been missed by the subeditor responsible for the headline to the review, which is: “Master’s nimble reading breathes life into Debussy.”
On Friday to hear the SSO, this time with Lane as soloist and Hugh Wolff conducting.
For a change, I sat in the circle, in rather splendid front row seats. I went with Dx, who lives in Europe and hadn’t been to the SOH for 4 or so years. The present state of the interior of the SOH struck him as very “tired,” and even allowing for the temporary nature of the current acoustic experiments, particularly daggy. “What’s with the masking tape across the panels closest to the circle?” he asked. He has a point. More specifically, he decried the utterly unsatisfactory piano sound. His diagnosis: there are no overtones; all percussion sounds are harsh with a bit of rebound (which includes the piano) and the piano itself always struggles to be heard over the orchestra. This necessarily constrains what a pianist can do when playing with the orchestra.
The program was:
Debussy Images, 1 and 2 (why not also 3?)
Vine – Piano Concerto No 2 (premiere)
Brahms – Symphony No 2
I’m going again tonight in my usual seat so I’ll give an acoustic second opinion after that. Suffice to say that the Vine did not strike me as particularly interesting writing for the piano – there was rather a lot of alternating hand work (that is, offset chords or octaves between the hands which are analogous to broken octaves) rather than figuration or interesting textures. It seemed copy-book/pattern-book stuff.
Peter McCallum said:
Carl Vine’s Piano Concerto No.2, receiving its first performance from Piers Lane, moved, like several of his works, from veiled shadows to bright light. Vine’s mould with concertos is familiar and successful with audiences. The first movement started with close-textured pianistic arabesques over lugubrious lower chords, moving to more sharply rhythmic straightforward music for the main section.
In the second, after some raw opening brass chords, Lane played dreamy arpeggios against a heavy, somewhat bovine tuba melody with a fleet central section on pizzicato strings and upper woodwind. The last movement reconceived some of the first movement’s ideas in broad daylight.
Lane’s professionalism communicated the work’s gestures with clarity and power.
In the letters column of the SMH, Peter Fyfe of Erskineville has complained:
Several paragraphs on the familiar work of a dead European, but only a couple on the stunning world premiere of an exciting new Australian piano concerto that was barely mentioned in the advertisements (”Wolff feasts on delicacy as intricate interpretation shows off its true colour”, August 24).
It is as if the Herald reviewer and the Sydney Symphony marketing department are conspiring to kill off Australian music. Shame.
Well, McCallum isn’t responsible for the orchestra’s publicity, but I think Mr Fyfe has failed to read between the lines. My gloss: Vine’s concerto made its appeal to the audience in ways that were fairly predictable and not terribly interesting and Lane gave it the performance it deserved.
I enjoyed it all, of course – why wouldn’t I? If I were a critic, I’d suggest that the brass in the Brahms was a little too – ah, how shall I say? – forthright and the whole effect was a bit on the Bismarckian Triumphlied side of Brahms for my taste.
Maybe I’ll feel differently after tonight’s second hearing.
Last Saturday, with P to the Australia Ensemble @ UNSW (as they style themselves).
As usual, we exchanged a lot of musical gossip, some of which is too sensitive or confidential to be aired on this blog.
After the ensemble’s long winter break (its last concert was in May) it was a bit of a shock to be reminded just how close we sit. Certainly, it imposes an onerous responsibility to keep noise down for the benefit of the microphones. Not a responsibility that some of the more distant members of the audience discharged so well. It was a terrible night for coughing, dropped walking sticks and a mobile phone alarm in the silence just before the slow movement of the Brahms Clarinet Quintet.
Speaking of which, the program was:
Claude DEBUSSY (1862-1918):Sonata for cello and piano (1915) – 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth
Antonín DVOŘÁK (1841-1904): Terzetto for two violins and viola in C, Opus 74: B148 (1887)
Carl VINE (b 1954): Sonata for flute and piano (2003)
Johannes BRAHMS (1833-1897): Clarinet Quintet Opus 115 in B minor (1891)
I enjoyed the Debussy. It’s one of three wartime sonatas Debussy wrote towards the end of his career. I’ve played the violin and piano one. The cello one struck me as more difficult for both players. It may be (as Wikipedia says) “a staple of the cello repertoire” but I doubt if I have actually heard it since it was a one of the choices for the chamber work round in the 1992 Sydney International Piano Competition, when Georg Pedersen played it. That says something a bit depressing about the amount of chamber music I get to hear. Julian Smiles and Ian Munro had a great rapport.
The Dvořák must count as a rarety. You could think of it as a piece for a string quartet when the cellist is off sick. The highlight for me was (predictably) the slower second movement. The ending of the final movement is rather perfunctory. Amazingly, P had heard it in Melbourne, coupled with the Brahms clarinet quintet, moreover, in a program put on by “Wilma and Friends” at the smaller recital hall of the new performance complex there. She said that the Australia Ensemble’s performance took more risks (not all of them successfully: one tricky little run defeated Dene Olding both times it occurred) and was much more exciting.
The date assigned to the Vine must be for a revision, because from memory I thought it was written in 1992 and revised in 1993. It was commissioned by 2MBSFM and is dedicated to Geoffrey Collins, who gave the first performance, in their studios, with David Miller. It was an effective piece in Carl Vine’s customary lots-o’-notes style, which always seems to me to owe something to the paste function in either Sibelius or Finale, though to be fair Vine’s musical manner and this piece predate such software tools and previous generations of composers have managed much the same thing with the simile symbol at the head of this post. The last movement is very fast and tongued. GC seemed to be struggling to keep up with the pace he and Ian Munro had set each other. That is rare for GC. Maybe it’s a younger man’s piece.
I had a funny encounter at interval. A mild-mannered young man came up to me when I was on my way back in, and told me (after a little apology for the unsolicited approach) that he reminded me of somebody he had seen in a DVD of “the making of Lucia.” I wonder who he meant. Anyway, I asked him “Which Lucia?” to which he replied, in all earnestness, ”Lucia di Lammermoor.” I suppose he could have thought I thought he might have been talking about Lucia Mapp.
I explained that I meant which production, to which he replied “Oh, the Sutherland one.” I told him that was a bit before my time.
It was rather cute, really. I went to my seat and I then saw him in conversation with others whom he also appeared to have approached as complete strangers on his way back to his seat. Perhaps he was just feeling lonely.
In the second half, the Brahms clarinet quintet. I’ve commented before about how Catherine McCorkill as a clarinetist that other clarinetists don’t always seem so keen on. In this piece I began to see why, because she did not take the mellow “autumnal” approach that seems to be de rigueur for late Brahms. Particularly in the upper register, she is inclined to a more strident sound. I didn’t mind it, but it wasn’t quite the conventional approach. As ever, it was the slow movement which was the best for me. There are muted strings involved as well, and I am a sucker for them.
The ending of the Brahms is also muted – though not literally. That doesn’t lead to an outburst of applause (you need the “big finish” for that), but to me it was all very satisfying.
Afterwards, when I got home, I read over the program notes. I may also have cast an eye over last year’s subscription brochure before turfing it out in preparation for the impending great disruption. The description of this particular concert on the website provides a sampling of the style – unmistakably from Roger Covell:
Debussy’s cello sonata, one of the instrumental masterpieces of the last years of his life, provides – with its shadowy, light-flecked glimpses of eloquence – a wholly different-sounding musical impression of the cult of the Pierrot figure from the one Australia Ensemble audiences heard in the group’s exceptionally theatricalised version of Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire early in 2011. It is also a world away from the straightforward homeliness of style in the Terzetto of Antonín Dvořák, written for the composer and a couple of his friends to play and full of the references to Czech song and dance idioms that came readily to a musician who seemed to have the art of writing memorable tunes at his fingertips whenever he put pen to manuscript paper. Carl Vine’s typically elegant and well-written flute sonata is a shapely upbeat to the Clarinet Quintet of Brahms, one of the summits of music and one of the two chamber works (the other being by Mozart) that seem to many listeners to embody the soul of the clarinet and the ultimate felicity of its union with a quartet of strings.
At the time I was also looking at next year’s SSO subscription brochure, and I couldn’t help noticing quite a difference. The SSO’s, like Opera Australia’s (of both of which more anon) are big and glossy. It may not be literally true that every page has an exclamation mark, but there is a kind of superlative-laden breathlessness which is all just a little bit exhausting to take in.
The AE’s pitch is a world away from that. I know they’re selling something different (and, in particular, cheaper and therefore not so inherently extravagant or expensive), but I’m beginning to think it might be the sort of thing I prefer.
On Friday night to hear the SSO’s “recreation” of its first concert in the Sydney Opera House, in 1973.
That concert featured [then plain "Mr"] Charles Mackerras as the returning Australian conductor, and Birgit Nilsson as the visiting Wagnerian superstar.
This time we had Simone Young and American soprano, Christine Brewer.
The program, dictated by the terms of the project as a reproduction, was:
Die Meistersinger – Overture
Tannhäuser – Dich teurer Halle!
Tristan und Isolde – Prelude & Liebestod
[Interval]
From Götterdämmerung:
Siegfried’s Rhine Journey
Siegfried’s Funeral March
Immolation scene
The building had been lit up and there was a gala feel with footage from the original concert being screened about the place and a full house. (Next door at the Opera Theatre all was tropical and merchandized for South Pacific; the younger male bar staff are wearing fetching little white US navy caps.) The SSO went to a bit of trouble with a gorgeous program cover. The program itself included (at page 22) the list of players from that concert. That suggested some small divergences in the reproduction of the 1973 concert.
For example, it seems as if in 1973 the SSO fielded 4 harps (6 are strictly called for but often not in evidence in actual performances) – in 2012 there were only 2. If the 1973 booklet can be believed (and the video record certainly seems to confirm it in this regard) the SSO also managed in 1973 to present its principal flute, oboe and bassoon (Neviile Amadio, Guy Henderson, John Cran: all players I recall), which is more than it did in 2012.
Perhaps in those days the program professed less than it does now to list the actual players in a given concert. For example, Ron Prussing, pictured above from the SMH review with the caption “Ron Prussing plays in Wagner Under The Sails” is one of two players still in the orchestra who played at the 1973 concert, but he isn’t listed. That can probably be explained because he was a last minute substitute. What is a bit more difficult to explain in relation to the picture caption is that unless I am mistaken, Ron Prussing only played in the second half in the 2012 concert, and played the bass trumpet.
In 2012, Diana Doherty was slated to play principal oboe but David Papp, the youngest permanent member of the section, had to step up to the plate [yuck! sporting metaphor] in her absence and an unnamed gent came in to make up the numbers. Neither Matthew Wilkie (principal bassoon) nor Janet Webb (principal flute) were rostered on. (Dene Olding gallantly took the third desk as Natalie Chee’s guest stint continued, btw.)
Conversely, I rather doubt if the SSO had a set of Wagner tubas in 1973. I think they were a novelty when I first heard them in Bruckner in ’78 or 79. Correction in response to comment: I have looked again at the video record and can now spot them.
As well as possible comparisons to the past, there was also an opportunity to draw comparisons to Angela Denoke and the Melbourne orchestra’s performances of a few weeks ago, particularly of the Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan & Isolde, which in both cases was the first-half closer. I was sitting in different spots, but I’d say Ms Brewer has the larger voice. When it came to the top notes she tended to rather hurl it up there and when it got to B and sometimes a bit below that there was a bit of a squawk, but as a friend who had gone on Saturday arvo put it, you could accept that as the price of her very rich lower and mid-register.
The audience received it rapturously but I’m not sure I shared their degree of adulation. I’ve decided it’s all to do with context. Wagnerian extracts are fun, but a Vorspiel is not the same when you aren’t expectant in the (usually darkened) theatre, and as I said about the MSO’s concert, the same applies to culmination of a long work as in either the Liebestod or in this case, the Immolation. A theatre’s acoustic is usually also a bit drier – relevant in this case to what should in my opinion have been a lighter and hence clearer touch in the jolly middle section of the Meistersinger overture. On the whole, if mostly well balanced and competently and even sometimes thrillingly played, things seemed plush and efficient rather than truly atmospheric.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it, but not really to the point of being particularly moved except maybe at the end of the Liebestod (which I noticed moved my neighbour to tears) and the Immolation, when I made myself be moved.
For the orchestral half of the Tristan the hall, probably the air-conditioning, added its own peculiar noise which resembled an intermittent low pizzicato D from the double basses. There were funny noises during the Liebestod for the MSO as well, though those were in the electronics. I sometimes wonder if the SOH is careful enough about this sort of thing.
I also listened to the repeat concert on Saturday afternoon when it was broadcast live. Funnily enough, the context issue didn’t worry me so much then, but then nor was I giving it the same sort of attention (there was cooking to be done as well) and my expectations were different.
On Sunday afternoon, I went to Angel Place to hear and see Avan Yu at the winner’s recital for the Sydney International Piano Competition [of Australia]. That is the occasion of the title of this post.
You can follow Mr Yu on the social media. Since he won it seems he has been back to Germany (that seems a rush so I might have got that wrong) then started his tour of the country. A lunchtime concert in Adelaide attracted a spectacular queue which he posted a picture of and I hope the other concerts were well attended by the audiences which the relevant host organisations drummed up on the back of all the publicity which the ABC broadcasts had given.
Unfortunately, SIPCA couldn’t manage the same for itself or its winner. The foyer was ominously underpopulated and when I went in I estimated the audience (in an 1100-capacity hall) as being in the low 200′s. Publicity had been rudimentary.
Avan Yu announced each piece just before he played it, as there wasn’t even so much as a photocopied song sheet. He did this quite personably, though I would have preferred it if he had also given us the whole program at the start. That turned out to be:
Chopin: Barcarolle
Schumann: Fantasie in C
[Interval]
Debussy: Etudes Bk I 1-6.
Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No 12
The highpoints of this were the Fantasie (perhaps not quite as good as in the Seymour Centre: maybe this was just a question of atmosphere and possibly the state of the piano; I thought in Angel Place the dotted passage just after the opening and its return in the second movement threatened to get away from itself) and, most definitely, the Debussy etudes. As an encore we got the Chopin Etude in E major Op 10 No 3 – not a piece likely to feature in the competition unless someone ventured a set.
It’s disappointing a bigger public could not be drummed up: the price was quite reasonable and while Avan is not yet at the standard, say, of the majority of pianists in the ABC’s piano series held in that venue, his playing was worth hearing. Perhaps the Sydney audience thought they had already heard him. Perhaps they were all piano-ed out. Maybe some stayed away out of loyalty to or preference for their “People’s Choice” winner.
Whatever the reason, it’s a salutary indication and reality check of what the piano competition can or cannot deliver for its winner.
On Friday night to hear the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Andrew Davis, and with Angela Denoke as soloist.
Originally, and as late as when I booked in response to a $20-off offer, the soloist was to be Deborah Voigt. Just after that, she cancelled.
There was to be a concert on Saturday as well. This was cancelled before I booked.
I had held back, first because such diva programs tend to be rather silly, and secondly, in resistance to the price – gouging is the word which comes to mind, however loaded that term may be. My guess is that I was not alone, especially on the second front. Prices were $169, $129, $89, $49. The prices alone do not tell the story: also relevant is just how widely the criteria for the highest price category was determined and, conversely, how narrowly the cheaper categories.
It matters not who was doing the gouging – that is whether it was Voigt, the MSO or the SOH, which appears to have been the presenter of the Sydney concerts. I do however suspect that the SOH itself was playing its part. That’s because of the tell-tale sign: withholding cheaper tickets from sale. No tickets at all had been sold for the galleries behind and the boxes at the side of the stage. There were about half a dozen people sitting in the first box on each side, scarcely justifying the expense of the usher in each, but that must have been some anomaly because I was certainly not offered the chance to buy such a ticket, which in my opinion would have been, for the orchestra at least, preferable to the seat I was able to get (said to be the last one left in the stalls at the time) in row G, which was the fourth row, looking up the skirts of the cello section.
This tactic is, in my opinion, misguided because sales create their own momentum, and even if the cheap seats fill absorb some demand which would otherwise result in a higher price sale, people who are going (and the cheap-seaters will be the enthusiasts) can generate word of mouth publicity. Secondly, because it probably causes a double bluff which can end in a lose-lose: if people inquire early and are told the rear and side seats are not on sale, then just maybe they will wait and see until they do come on sale. Thirdly it is wrong (in a way which is still relevant to the SOH as a recipient of substantial public funds) because there are people who will just never be able to afford the higher priced tickets but who don’t want to sit in the last couple of rows of the circle, and to leave the choir and organ galleries and side boxes empty is a waste of the chance to cater to them.
As ever with entrepeneurs cold-selling to the public (as opposed to those with a subscriber base to draw on) it seemed the SOH overestimated the drawing-power of their artist. Voigt may be well-known to the Met-Opera-in-the-cinema crowd, but they see her there for $20-something. It all takes me back to Clifford Hocking’s scandalously half-empty Concert Hall for Peter Schreier in 1990. (There is a characteristically perceptive article by Katrina Strickland in the AFR which touches on this issue.)
Once Ms Voigt cancelled, refunds were offered. Oddly, I got a second email from the SOH because it turned out they wanted you also to confirm that you were coming. I wondered if they were testing the waters for an insurance-based cancellation of some sort, but on reflection I think they were just shoring up their defences about complaints. As The Age’s reviewer of the Melbourne concert on Wednesday put it, inferring a sizeable acceptance of the refund offer from the presence of young people picking up tickets on the night: “If you’ve paid for a first-class seat on a plane, being bumped to business class for the same price would smart.”
In Sydney it wasn’t crowds of young people, but instead a bigger than usual free list gang which crowded the box office foyer – easily numbering in the hundreds. Familiar faces from the SSO and the AOBO could be spotted and obviously it was open season for them (confirmed to me by a conversation with an AOBA member I ran into at the greengrocer this afternoon). And fair enough. I expect many of them were in fact as interested in hearing the MSO in a rare Sydney outing as they were in hearing Ms Denoke.
The first half was:
Wagner Tannhäuser: Prelude
Wagner Die Walküre: Du bist der Lenz
Wagner Tristan und Isolde: Prelude and Liebestod
From where I was sitting, the opening pilgrim’s-chorus theme in the Tannhäuser was mellifluous, though it lacked the sense of occasion that it has when it comes at the start of the night in a darkened theatre and in a way that I can’t quite put my finger on, an antique processional tread. It was impossible for me to get a good impression of the subsequent busy violin figuration, which came to from over the lip of the stage with the result that it sounded, whether it really was or not, scrappy. The excerpt from Die Walküre was so brief that it came across more as a warm-up than anything else. Oddly the program notes attributed the MSO’s first performance of this to a tenor: my guess is that it was coupled with Winterstürme, which really makes for a more satisfactory [albeit still bleeding at the end] chunk.
Up close I got maybe too much of the jaw-wobbling needed to support Ms Denoke’s big and creamy voice, and she seemed perhaps too modern, European and svelte to convince as Isolde. The thing really was that to hear the Liebestod just after the prelude foreshortens things (it’s the bleeding-chunk criticism again). When the famous wave breaks it should be the culmination of hours of build-up, rather than just 10 minutes. Still, it was nevertheless enjoyable in a slightly out-of-context way.
In the second half, I moved back to the middle of row R, next to a man whose wife had cancelled for the evening: they’d been to the SSO that morning and had originally booked to hear this concert on Saturday rather than Friday. I caught a glance of his ticket and saw the $169 and thought: “ouch!”
The second half was:
Strauss Der Rosenkavalier: Suite
Strauss Salome, Op.54: Final Scene
The Rosenkavalier Suite was luxuriant stuff and Davis was well in command of his gang. The quinty string stuff gets rather less attention in this version than I would like and it ends jauntily – the duet from near the end only lasts a moment in this version.
It’s clear that in appointing Sir Andrew Davis the MSO has taken a leaf out of the SSO’s book with their engagement of Ashkenazy and whilst I expect this has been expensive (as with VA for the SSO) the signs bode well, even if he will not be there very much in his first year at all.
Given what followed, I rather wonder why they couldn’t have included the Dance of the Seven Veils – it’s not as if the program was overly long as it stood.
The Salome gave a chance to hear Denoke at a distance. In the big orchestral stuff the orchestra could have held back a bit. Despite the recent acoustic improvement, the Concert Hall is more resonant than an opera theatre. She came into her own by the end (she has just performed the role to acclaim in London) and received a rousing ovation. It was not [crucial word inadvertently omitted on first posting] I think, merely out of a determination to have a good time sans Voigt.
Which brings me to the title of this post.
Strangely enough, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra was the first orchestra I heard in the Opera House Concert Hall. It was a try-out concert before the official opening, and they played Tchaikovsky 5. I can’t remember who the conductor was but my best guess is John Hopkins.
Since then, perhaps I have heard the MSO twice in the flesh before this concert. At first I could not recall when but now I think it was when I lived in Canberra in the early eighties, when each of the Sydney and Melbourne orchestras paid a visit for the ABC subscription series.
At that time we used to hear lots (mostly from Melbourne, surprise surprise) about how the Melbourne orchestra was much better than the Sydney orchestra, and there may well have been something in that. It is difficult to be dispassionate about these things, because the old Sydney-Melbourne thing is so deeply ingrained. Since then, I fondly imagine the SSO has pulled up its socks. It is busier than the MSO, has a substantially larger subscriber base, has a larger and better-paid establishment (and price of living differentials between the cities have narrowed). It used to be said that the MSO had more adventurous programming, but the Caetani episode put a bit of a dampener on that line of argument and the suggestions at that time that the MSO could manage without any chief conductor at all are unlikely to have been a healthy sign. One advantage that the MSO probably now has is the proximity of the Australian National Academy of Music.
The truth is, with the Sydney-Melbourne thing, that no two cities could possibly be more alike, and I expect this is also true of the orchestras. Of course there are differences, some of them attributable to the principal players in the wind and brass sections (I’m thinking Crellin/Doherty in the oboes here but there must be others). To me it is a shame that more of an effort is not made to allow people in both cities to hear both orchestras from time to time. The problem is that there is nothing to be monetarily gained from it: the lesson from the TSO’s forays to Sydney and of the two-then-one concert plans for Voigt in Sydney is that free-standing concerts are a fraught venture. The obvious solution is that they should swap an orchestral series slot in each city. It’s not as if the SSO, at least, has not been above palming off the AYO on its subscribers in the Meet the Music series in recent years. Even better would be if this could be done under the batons of their respective chief conductors, because that is the etiquette for touring. That might be a harder sell, given the obviously limited availability each chief conductor has.
This is something which I might have raised with Sir Andrew when I unexpectedly came across him having a durry at interval (as I was too, having relapsed) at the top of the Aztec-temple-inspired steps. That would have been unfair: I’m sure he needed a breather and time to start thinking about Strauss. So we briefly exchanged the usual smokers’ jests about a breath of fresh air and I belatedly remembered to say that, of course, we were all enjoying the performance.
I could I suppose have raised it with the SSO’s Rory Jeffes, evident on the free list, but having witnessed his display of masterliness in Shanghai in 2009 I expect I would be wasting my breath.
It’s in honour of my moment with Sir Andrew that I have linked at the head of this post to the King’s Singers’ filmed version of Come, Sirrah, Jack ho! It’s hard to imagine such a scene being filmed today, though you can sometimes be surprised.
The lyrics to that are:
Come sirrah Jack ho,
fill some Tobacco,
bring a wire and some fire,
haste away, quick I say,
do not stay shun delay,
for I drank none good today.
I swear that this Tobacco
it’s perfect Trinidado
by the very Mass never was
better gear than is here
by the rood, for the blood
it is very good ’tis very good.
This strikes me as an early use of the term “gear” in relation to substances.
OMG, I have gone on rather. Is anyone still with me here?
With such a wealth of digression, it seems apposite to say:
This is Wilfrid Thomas Marcellous from London Sydney, thanking you for having me at your place.
On Friday night to hear the SSO play the Bruckner 8, conducted not by Donald Runnicles but by his conspicuously unheralded replacement Lothar Koenig. Julian Rachlin was the soloist in the Berg violin concerto.
As ever, Bruckner brings brass fans out in noticeble numbers. They are the less-nerdy-looking boys and young men in the audience, as well as at least one other old friend (a French Horn player) whom I always run into when the big B is on the bill.
I’m sorry I didn’t do a bit more preparation (or, I confess shamefacedly, any preparation) for the Berg, which was over before I could really get into it. So I can’t really comment on Rachlin’s performance, other than to express surprise that he had some music on a music stand, though he didn’t appear to make much reference to it.
The concerto refers to a Bach chorale which emerges (though apparently sublimated in the structure before that) in the last movement with incredible sweetness. Whenever I encounter such homage I always think of the homage in the film Gremlins, where the gremlins go to the cinema and catch a bit of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves: the risk is that the work homaged can sometimes elicit an invidious comparison with the work in which the homage is placed. If I’d prepared myself more for the Berg this probably would not have been so as the Bach bit just has the unfair advantage of familiarity. The two came together with a real poignancy at the end and true beauty. I didn’t want it to stop.
I think I’ve been bowled over more by the Bruckner in the past – and I’ve heard the SSO play it in 1979, 1989 (or circa, which I think was for some reason in the Town Hall) and 2005 when Nézet-Séguin memorably replaced Maazel. On this occasion it excited more admiration than affection. Maybe I’m getting too blase.
What really distracted me from any critical evaluation of the performances (even supposing I were a critic) or even the works was the striking improvement in the Concert Hall’s acoustics which is the product of the trials and experiments first noted on this blog in 2008.
That is potentially a bit unfair to the orchestra on this occasion and Herr Koenig in particular (who may, after all, be responsible for some of what I was putting down to the acousticians’ work), because the big lesson from the Berlin Philharmonic’s visit in particular is that the acknowledged deficiencies of clarity in the Concert Hall can be overcome, though perhaps what an orchestra needs in part is an opportunity to hone its skills in a clearer acoustic before venturing into the Concert Hall’s blurr. That was certainly Edo de Waart’s view when he at least was able to move the SSO out of the bathroomish Eugene Goossens Hall and into the Concert Hall for its rehearsals.
Visually, things still looked a bit makeshift, and I guess there may still be some adjustments to come. At the risk of repeating myself, all I can say is that the improvement so far was more than I had thought possible or likely. It seems unfair to put it like this, but I really hope it wasn’t just Lothar Koenig’s incredible skill that was responsible for it. Future concerts will tell.
Anyway, let’s hope that the cargo cult of the sound settles down and I can respond less self-c0nsciously to the improvement in purely musical terms. In that case I am looking forward to an acoustic dividend with artistic consequences, and especially being able to hear the woodwind, and quieter string details (on Friday some moments of clarity were not entirely flattering), not to mention the horns (on Friday of course we also had some luscious Wagner tubas) and even the other end of the brass placed more precisely on the sound stage.
